Press Release

The force and unrelenting urgency of the sea is the inspiration for Roger Preston’s first solo show at the Kim Foster Gallery in Chelsea, titled “Portals and Tempests.”

The multifaceted nature of the ocean with its ability to calm the soul and yet devastate entire land masses is both fascinating and humbling. Its beauty and strength are simultaneously represented in these oil/mixed media works on aluminum that bring together the conflicting hard surface of the metal with the lush impressionistic images of water and sky. The panel shapes reference history in the silhouettes of shields, looking glass frames or ideas about containment, while also creating windows or portals to another place or state of mind as they present a passage of escape, yet offer the threat of submergence and suffocation with the freedom they promise.

In the show, as well, are pure abstractions, also in metal, that collide with each other in a dramatic battle of supremacy – ships battling at sea, barnacles attaching themselves in parasitic fashion, suns and moons ablaze.